Sunday, 26 September 2010

This video was shot on Brighton beach on Wednesday September 22, 2010, the day after the autumnal equinox.

The summer was over, but it was a beautiful, warm day, most likely the last such day of the year. This was the first lamentation.

The sun was beginning to set over the remains of the fire and tide-ravaged West Pier. There are plans to rebuild it, but this seems less and less likely. Each time I see it there is a little less of it. This was the second lamentation.

The third lamentation is what brought me to the beach that day to contemplate the sun, the end of the summer, and the barely fixable ruins.

My aim was that, for each of the shots in the loop, I had to stare through my camera viewfinder directly at the sunlight for as long as I could, so that I could see nothing else and until I could bear it no longer. And then I started again. Until I couldn't bear it any longer.